A cutting and forming machine having provision for manually adjusting the tools and dies on movable portions has been known for a long time. As a rule, one is concerned here with follow-on compound tools in which sheet material is cut and formed in several stages. Such follow-on compound tools essentially comprise a movable as well as a stationary or immovable machine part. Adjusting devices are located in the movable upper part of the tool for setting the cutting and forming assemblies. After the sheet material has left the forming and cutting section, it is led to a measuring device for measuring the cutting and forming results. The measuring signals arising from this serve to set an actuator of the adjusting device. This adjusting process was previously conducted manually and on the basis of the experience of the operator. For this operation the entire machinery must be stopped so that the operator can actuate the adjusting device within the movable portion or the upper part of the tool. The adjustment parts are typically inaccessible while the machine is operating, and risk to personnel often requires complete shut down. As this kind of adjustment involves a trial-and-error process, the steps described above must be carried out several times in order to finally achieve the desired cutting and forming result. However, as the material quality of the sheet material varies not only from coil to coil but also within one coil, such measurements and readjustments must not only be repeated for every change of the sheet material, but often also during the unrolling of the sheet material. This kind of adjustment (typically on the order of magnitude of 0.01 mm) can only be conducted reliably by a trained workman with experience of such a follow-on compound tool and subsequently requires a considerable amount of time in which the follow-on compound tool is not used. The increased costs resulting from this in personnel, training, errors, and machines time lost is considerable. The changes in material within a coil can also not be sufficiently accounted for so that the cutting and forming results within a single coil may not correspond to the desired value, resulting in scrap or unusable product.